Breastfeeding of an infant provides numerous benefits to the infant and the breastfeeding woman. Breastmilk contains all of the nutrients a baby needs in the exact amounts required for optimal growth and development. Breastfed babies are healthier, having fewer middle ear infections, fewer respiratory infections, a decreased risk of developing allergies, cancer, childhood diabetes, and obesity, and being less prone to develop heart diseases, eczema, and asthma. For the breastfeeding woman, breastfeeding reduces post-delivery bleeding and chances of anaemia, aids in the uterus returning to its original size after birth, and burns up to an extra 500 calories per day.
However, not every nursing woman is able to breastfeed an infant on demand due to work schedules and other time demands. Accordingly, many nursing women use a breast pump to extract and store milk for feeding an infant. Breast pump systems routinely include a breast shield, which is a funnel-like apparatus having a conical region that is placed against the breast with the nipple in the center of the breast shield. Upon the application of negative pressure, the nipple is drawn toward, and often into, a tubular portion of the breast shield known as the nipple tunnel. The nipple tunnel of the breast shield is connected to other components of a breastmilk collection kit. This connection permits application of intermittent (i.e., cyclical) negative pressure to the interior of the breast shield, and also provides a flow path for breastmilk expressed into the nipple tunnel to be collected in a collection receptacle. The collection receptacle may be a breastmilk container having a threaded cap that can serve as a bottle for feeding an infant. A nursing woman generally has to hold the breast shield against her breast manually in order to pump milk.
Predictably, holding the breast shield in place is inconvenient and limits the tasks that the woman could otherwise accomplish while pumping. Although various brassieres and bustiers have been developed to hold the breast shield in place, such brassieres and bustiers have generally failed to adequately secure the breast shield and have required holding or frequent adjusting of the breast shield.